Health by Science is a leading provider of Personal Training and rehab services in the Edinburgh
Health by Science is a leading provider of Personal training and rehab services in the Edinburgh area. We are on a mission to help individuals thrive with science-backed coaching programmes that aim to assist clients in losing weight, improving fitness, and achieving overall health and well-being. Their team of dedicated professionals offers bespoke Personal Training services, utilising the latest research and techniques to ensure effective and safe workouts. Whether you are looking to kickstart your fitness journey or take your training to the next level, Health by Science is committed to helping you reach your goals.
10/02/2026
If training feels hit-and-miss, it’s not because you’re lazy or inconsistent.
It’s usually because you’re guessing.
Guessing what exercises you should be doing.
Guessing how hard to push.
Guessing whether pain is “normal” or a red flag.
The Movement MOT removes the guesswork.
We assess how you move, what’s limiting you, and what’s holding back your progress, then give you a clear, personalised plan so every session actually counts.
No random workouts.
No wasted effort.
Just clarity, confidence, and progress you can feel.
👉 Start with a Movement MOT for just £15 (normally £60).
09/02/2026
Being inclusive isn’t about good intentions. It’s about informed action.
On 27.02.26 (15:00–16:30), this CPD session asks an important question:
Can we genuinely say we are LGBTQ+ Affirmative Practitioners?
We’ll explore sexual and gender diversity, the impact of language and awareness on trust, and the lived history of discrimination that still shapes people’s experiences today. Despite legal progress, real barriers to accessing care remain and it’s on us as practitioners to recognise and reduce them.
This session is about creating spaces where clients feel safe, respected, and able to show up as their authentic selves. Non-judgement isn’t assumed. It’s demonstrated.
05/02/2026
January told us everything.
We completed 20 Movement MOTs in one month, not just for people in pain, but for people who wanted to:
Feel confident using the gym
Know they’re lifting, running, and moving well
Stop guessing and start progressing
A Movement MOT isn’t about being told to “rest”.
It’s about understanding how your body moves so your training actually pays off.
Because of demand (and the time involved), the price is increasing in March.
Right now it’s £15 and includes:
Full movement assessment
Clear, personalised next steps
Free physio assessment if we find an issue
If you want to train with confidence and get more return from the work you’re already doing, this is for you.
DM us to book in.
04/02/2026
The stick drill is one of the simplest ways to clean up your deadlift hip hinge.
Three points of contact:
Head
Upper back
Tailbone
If all three stay in contact as you hinge, you’re moving from the hips, not rounding your spine, not squatting the weight down.
Why it works:
Teaches a true hip hinge
Reinforces a neutral spine
Improves load tolerance and consistency under the bar
If the stick loses contact, that’s instant feedback. Adjust, slow it down, own the pattern, then load it.
Master the movement first. Strength comes after.
02/02/2026
Sleep advice usually stops at “get more of it”.
Helpful… but not very realistic when you’re a busy human.
So what actually happens if you train after a bad night’s sleep?
A large meta-analysis (69 studies, 227 outcomes) shows that acute sleep loss (≤6 hours) does reduce performance but not equally across everything.
What takes the biggest hit?
Skill-based tasks: coordination, precision, fine motor control.
What’s more resilient?
Strength and power still drop, but less dramatically around ~0.4% per hour awake before training.
That might mean failing a rep early, not falling apart entirely.
How to train smart after poor sleep
• Train if you can, but auto-regulate
• Aim for ~2 reps in reserve (2 RIR) rather than chasing PRs
• Let load or reps come down naturally that day
• Save true near-failure work for well-recovered sessions
Timing matters too:
• Morning sessions tend to outperform evenings after poor sleep
• Keeping bedtime normal and waking earlier is less damaging than staying up late
Big picture:
One bad night won’t blunt long-term adaptations.
Poor sleep changes the cost of effort, not the value of training.
Sleep is a performance multiplier not an on/off switch.
DOI: 10.1007/s40279-022-01706-y.
If you want help adjusting training around sleep, stress, and real-life chaos, that’s exactly what our Movement MOT is designed for.
21/01/2026
Debbie is a returning client.
Before coming back to training, she’d been spinning up to five times a week but life threw a few curveballs, motivation dipped, and her confidence took a hit.
Her goal wasn’t anything flashy.
She wanted to feel strong again and get back to the level of fitness she knew she was capable of.
Along the way, Debbie shared that arthritis runs in her family, which made building strength, especially grip strength, feel even more important for her long-term health.
Through consistent, progressive strength training she:
• Rebuilt confidence in big lifts like squats and deadlifts
• Got stronger with good technique and meaningful loads
• Found that training had a huge positive impact on her mental health
We also looked at nutrition, not restriction, not perfection, just making sure her body was consistently fuelled, especially on busy days when meals were getting skipped.
The result?
More strength.
Better resilience.
Sustainable habits that support both physical and mental wellbeing.
This is what training is meant to do, support your life, not compete with it.
20/01/2026
Most people already know what to do.
Eat enough protein.
Eat plenty of fruit, veg and plants.
Manage portions.
Be deliberate with treats.
Stay hydrated.
The hard part isn’t knowledge it’s consistency, especially when life gets busy.
At Health by Science, we focus on small, evidence-based habits, built around the person in front of us, their lifestyle, stress, injuries, work and family life.
No extremes.
No all-or-nothing rules.
Just systems that actually hold up over time.
That’s why progress looks like this 👆
Steady. Predictable. Sustainable.
19/01/2026
If you set a New Year’s resolution to move more, get fitter, or start going to the gym a few times a week and it’s already starting to feel hard, this is normal.
The early weeks are the toughest.
You’re building new habits, changing routines, and asking more of your body than it’s used to.
But this isn’t what it feels like forever.
As those habits settle in, things become easier to maintain.
Training starts to feel more normal. More automatic. Less like effort and more like part of life.
If you’re finding this phase tough, it doesn’t mean your resolution was unrealistic, it means you’re in the hardest part.
And if you want help making this stage simpler and more manageable, start with a Movement MOT a one-to-one session with a personal trainer to help you build something that actually fits your life.
Consistency first. Perfection not required.
14/01/2026
AI in Healthcare: Will it make us lazy, free us to be better… or make us obsolete?
AI is already in your pocket.
But for Physios and PTs, the question is still uncomfortable:
If software can write rehab programmes and analyse data in seconds… what’s left for the clinician?
In this session we cut through the noise and show how we use AI at Health by Science not to replace clinicians but to upgrade them.
The core idea:
Automate the Escalator tasks (admin, data, busywork)
So you have more energy for the Stairs (empathy, hands-on skill, clinical reasoning).
What we’ll cover:
• The Mental Gym
How to use AI as a sparring partner to sharpen clinical reasoning — not a crutch that makes you lazy.
• The HBS “Bionic” Workflow
A behind-the-scenes look at how we use Gemini, Zapier, MacroFactor & Intercom to strip away low-value admin.
• Safety First (Healthy Skeptic mode)
GDPR, hallucinations, and the “Grandmother Rule” for patient data.
• Practical demos
Live workflows inside Google Workspace that you can actually use next week.
This isn’t a criticism of individuals, it’s a statement of values.
At Health by Science, we don’t use acupuncture or dry needling because our job isn’t to chase short-term pain relief. It’s to help people rebuild capacity, confidence, and resilience so problems don’t keep coming back.
Needles can change how something feels.
They don’t change how much load your body can handle.
We choose approaches that:
– empower people
– scale beyond the treatment room
– and actually change what the body can do
That’s our line in the sand.
If you want rehab that focuses on long-term change, start with an assessment, not a needle.
09/01/2026
You don’t need to be broken to book a sports massage.
Tightness, stiffness, feeling a bit heavy or run-down, that’s reason enough to get some support.
Our sports massage sessions aren’t about “fixing” you or pushing through pain.
They’re about helping you feel better in your body so training, work, and everyday life feel easier.
We’re offering a discounted sports massage for first-time clients.
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We are Scotland’s first Personal Training/Physiotherapy Social Enterprise, and we strongly believe that our social enterprise model could offer a new paradigm for physiotherapy and personal training in the UK.
The profit we make goes towards our social purpose, which is helping people who have
been discharged from the NHS but still have rehab potential.
We are a team of university graduates passionate about highlighting the importance of science and changing lifestyles to help maximise people’s wellbeing and minimise the risk of preventable illness. You can meet the team here.
We believe in science. Believing is easy. Being sceptical is hard. As healthy sceptics, we do the research before helping our clients to apply the evidence using the principles of sustainable behaviour change.
Our goal is to help our clients achieve their goals as easily and sustainably as possible, whether that be a stroke survivor trying to walk 5km or an elite athlete aiming to run 500km.
We often share the success stories of our clients on social media to help inspire others to recover from debilitating conditions.
What we do
Our physiotherapists work closely with strength coaches to provide a full spectrum of services, from rehabilitation to high-performance coaching.
